of principle. How profoundly mistaken Lord Salisbury was both as regarded the past conduct of the Premier and the future of the constituencies probably he himself would now be the first to admit.

This was the last speech of importance made by Mr. Disraeli during the Session of 1867. He had taken the lead in all the business of the House as a matter of course, but the allabsorbing question of Reform had been the main business of the year. Parliament was prorogued on the 21st of August, the Queen's Speech being read by Commission. It contained an allusion to the settlement of the Luxemburg difficulty, in which Her Majesty's Government had had a considerable share, and due mention was made of the successful completion of the Canadian Confederation. The Reform Bill was also mentioned in a paragraph which bears a curious likeness to a passage in the speech of Lord Derby on the third reading of that measure in the Lords. "No doubt," the noble Earl had said, "we are making a great experiment and taking a leap in the dark; but I have the greatest confidence in the sound sense of my fellow countrymen, and I entertain a strong hope that the extended franchise which we are now conferring upon them will be the means of placing the institutions of this country on a firmer basis, and that the passing of the measure will tend to increase the loyalty and contentment of a great portion of Her Majesty's subjects." "I earnestly trust," said the Speech from the Throne, "that the extensive and liberal measure which you have passed may effect a durable settlement of a question which has long engaged public attention, and that the large number of my subjects who will be for the first time admitted to the exercise of the Elective Franchise

may in the discharge of the duties thereby devolved upon them prove themselves worthy of the confidence which Parliament has reposed in them."

A week earlier Ministers had, as usual, been entertained by the Lord Mayor at the Mansion House, and Mr. Disraeli made a remarkable and characteristic speech. "I have seen in my time," said he, "several monopolies terminated, and recently I have seen the termination of the monopoly of Liberalism. Nor are we to be surprised when we see that certain persons, who believed that they had an hereditary right whenever it was necessary to renovate the institutions of their country, should be somewhat displeased that any other persons should presume to interfere with those changes which I hope, in the spirit of true patriotism, they believed the requirements of the State rendered necessary. But I am sure that when the

hubbub has subsided-when the shrieks and screams which were heard some time ago and which have already subsided into sobs and sighs, shall be thoroughly appeased-nothing more terrible will be discovered to have occurred than that the Tory party has resumed its natural functions in the government of the country. For what is the Tory party unless it represents national feeling? If it do not represent national feeling Toryism is nothing. It does not depend upon hereditary coteries of exclusive nobles. It does not attempt power by attracting to itself the spurious force which may accidentally arise from advocating cosmopolitan principles or talking cosmopolitan jargon. The Tory party is nothing unless it represent and uphold the institutions of the country. For what are the institutions of the country? They are entirely in theory, and ought to be, as I am glad to see they are likely to be in

A Busy Autumn.

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practice, the embodiment of the national necessities and the only security for popular privileges. Well then I cannot help believing that because my Lord Derby and his colleagues have taken a happy opportunity to enlarge the privileges of the people of England, we have not done anything but strengthen the institutions of the country, the essence of whose force is that they represent the interests and guard the rights of the people." These views seem to have startled a good many people at the time of their utterance, and one critic in particular was especially severe on "Mr. Disraeli's new theories of Toryism "the fact being that Lord Beaconsfield has always had to contend with a criticism based upon not what he has really said or written but upon what his critics imagine that he ought to have said. The words he used on this occasion are, as the reader will perceive, almost literally the same as those which he used in the earliest years of his political career both in his speeches and in his published works.

The autumn was a busy one in the political world. Lord Beaconsfield indeed, did not make the political speech to his constituents which the country had become accustomed to expect, assigning as an excuse that "he was not up to politics in September," nor did he accompany Lord Derby, Lord Stanley, Lord John Manners, and Sir John Pakington when they went to Manchester in October to be feasted by nine hundred members of the Conservative party there. He was not, however, forgotten, and the cheering was loud and continuous when Lord Derby declared that it was he "to whose tact, temper and judgment it was mainly owing that the arduous undertaking in which they had been engaged had not resulted, instead of triumphant success, in disastrous failure." A fortnight later.

Mr. Disraeli was present at a banquet given in his honour at Edinburgh. In speaking after the dinner he again vindicated the right of the Conservative party to deal with the question of Reform, and explained how, during the seven years between 1859 and 1866 he "had had to prepare the mind of the country and to educate-if it be not arrogant to use such a phrase to educate our party. It is a large party and requires its attention to be called to questions of this kind with some pressure." The use of this phrase was criticised somewhat severely, especially by the organs of "cultivated Liberalism," one of which, with a disregard of fact which would be laughable were it not so malignant, asserted that this explanation of his course must be intended as a joke, since it was impossible to believe that all the while he was heading his party in the denunciation of every measure of Reform which proposed a considerable reduction of the franchise or let in any important number of the more ignorant and more violent classes, he was really instructing his colleagues in the necessity of going at once to household suffrage." Lord Russell made a remark in the Upper House which the following letter will best explain and answer. It is one of the very few which Lord Beaconsfield has addressed to the London papers.

"Sir-Lord Russell observed last night in the House of Lords that I boasted at Edinburgh that whilst during seven years I opposed a reduction of the borough franchise, I had been all that time educating my party with the view of bringing about a much greater reduction of the franchise than that which my opponents had proposed.' As a general rule, I never notice misrepresentations of what I may have said; but

Speech at Edinburgh.

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as this charge was made against me in an august assembly and by a late First Minister of the Crown, I will not refrain from observing that the charge has no foundation. Nothing of the kind was said by me at Edinburgh. I said there that the Tory party after the failure of their Bill of 1859 had been educated for seven years on the subject of Parliamentary Reform, and during that interval had arrived at five conclusions, which, with their authority, I had at various times announced, viz. :--

"1. That the measure should be complete.

"2. That the representation of no place should be entirely abrogated.

"3. That there must be a real Boundary Commission.

"4. That the county representation should be considerably increased.

"5. That the borough franchise should be established on the principle of rating.

"This is what I said at Edinburgh, and it is true.

I am, Sir, your obedient Servant,

"DOWNING STREET, March 6."

"B. DISRAELI.

In the course of this speech Lord Beaconsfield took the opportunity of answering the objections to his Reform Bill, dividing them into two classes-those who think that by establishing household suffrage it has democratized the constituencies, and those who hold, with the writer of "the Conservative Surrender" in the Quarterly Review, that it has demoralized the Tory party. He would not admit that house. hold suffrage was necessarily democratic in its tendency; but it was not necessary to argue the point, since as a matter of fact the Government had not established household suffrage. There